Americus (Georgia)
Americus is in the Classic Heartland of Georgia.
Understand
Once known as the "Metropolis of Southwest Georgia", Americus was a city of prominence: it had the only privately financed railroad in the state, the first electric street car system, and a status as a cotton distribution center. What started as a town in 1859 became all this and a place for colleges, military installations, a WWII German POW camp, and a nidus of minor league baseball.
Americus has been visited by such likenesses as Booker T Washington, Charles Lindbergh, FDR, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Interestingly enough, Americus has also been part and parcel to some of the darkest and brightest moments of humanity, namely through witness of the Andersonville prisoner of war camp where Union soldiers endured the harshest of elements in survival during the Civil War, and the interracial Koinonia farm and Habitat for Humanity, movements that sprung out of the Civil Rights era with a vision of harmony and spiritual partnership for all.
Get in
Americus is about an hour southeast of Columbus or an hour north of Albany, by car.
Get around
See
- 1 Andersonville National Historic Site. Preserves Camp Sumter (also known as Andersonville Prison), a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp during the American Civil War.
- 2 Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, ☏ +1 229 824-4104. Preserves sites associated with Jimmy Carter in Sumter County
- 3 Koinonia Farm, 1324 GA-49, ☏ +1 229-924-0391. A historical intentional community built on inclusiveness that emerged during the Civil Rights era underscoring the ability for all races and creeds to be able to work together and out of which sprung the Habitat for Humanity organization. Open for visits, retreats, or internships.
- 4 Lindbergh First Solo Flight Monument, 223 Airport Rd (at Jimmy Carter Regional Airport). Statue commemorating where Charles Lindbergh made his first solo flight.
Do
Buy
Sadly, the Habitat for Humanity Global Village and Discovery Center where you could visit a recreated Papua New Guinean shanty on stilts or a Haitian lean-to has closed in this town where Habitat For Humanity originated, but you can still visit their store across the street:
- 1 Habitat for Humanity, 723 Millard Fuller Blvd, ☏ +1 229 931-9899. Th-F 10AM-2PM.
Eat
Drink
Sleep
- Best Western Plus Windsor Hotel, 125 W Lamar St, ☏ +1 229-924-1555. This one is special because it was originally built as the Windsor Hotel in 1892 in Queen Anne style and has had such dignitaries as Vice-President Thomas Marshall and Franklin Delano Roosevelt speak there.
